Convention Report (in lieu of News)

Driving back and forth to Boston is eating up my hours (in fact, I have to leave shortly after writing this), so news will be doubled next week and in compensation, we offer the continuation of the con report.

Saturday was a no-panel day for me, except for a couple that I’d been asked to attend as audience.  (Seems we do a lot of internal promotion for our individual panels at cons.  Help fill up my room kind of thing.)

The first audience gig I was supposed to attend was for Judith K Dial’s and Tom Whitmore’s NESFA anthology – CONSPIRACY.

But I read the program wrong and ended up in a reading by Wesley Chu, who introduced us to his world of Tao (as well as a new work whose title escapes me at the moment).  Wesley was very engaging and his work sounds funny as hell.  Plus we were treated to a perfect “write what you know” moment when he revealed that a particular scene had been drawn from real life.

I was able to keep my seat and stayed for the multi-author reading from CONSPIRACY.  Those reading were: Sarah Smith, James L. Cambias, Jeff Hecht, Allen M. Steele, Debra Doyle, Stephen Popkes.  Tom Whitmore read from his introduction (a short story in itself!). Cover by Bob Eggleton.  Available from NESFA press.  Better get one quick!

The readings were hilarious and I won’t spoiler by writing about any of them.  Suffice to say, the first question from the audience was “What’s the real reason the anthology was published?”

I then spent some time with David Gerrold at his table where several people came by to remark on how much they absolutely loved the comic A Doctor for the Enterprise.  (Copies are still available here on site.)  David was fun and interesting as always and I finally managed to fill in a bit of my own past history:  he remembered that our elevator race took place at the Commodore Hotel (NYC) in either ’73 or ’74 at one of the Trek cons.  I remembered the incident, just not the convention in question.  See, this is graying old fandom needs each other.  Each of us has bits of the other’s histories in our heads.

I also spent some time visiting at the MacII table, grabbing the remaining File 770s from the freebie table, visiting with Mike Walsh at the Old Earth books table (picked up a CD of Chalker & Owing’s The Fantasy Publishers) and

a copy of the daily newsletter that featured my David Hartwell Memorial tie on the cover.

And then it was time for the memorial itself.  A box of ties was on hand for anyone attending who hadn’t brought one;  presenting were Moshe Feder, Kathryn Cramer, Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and several other close associates of David.  In the audience were his children and many, many many others whose lives were touched by him.  It was a true family gathering spending time together remembering a much-loved individual.  David has influenced at least two generations of fans and contributed far more to our field and community than most know.  I hope we do his memory justice as we move forward without him.

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